CAR magazine Feb 2015 preview

First
Drives
featuring
bentley mulsanne speed
nissan 370z nismo
bmw 3-series plug-in hybrid
vw up vs renault twingo
audi a7 h-tron
bmw 2-series active tourer awd
peugeot 208 gti 30
stuart collins
30 CARMAGAZINE.Co.uk I february 2015

Abarth 695 Biposto
The scorpion king
Befitting its status as Fiat’s slightly unhinged cousin, Abarth
turns the 500 into a rip-snorting baby supercar with a frankly
unbelievable pricetag. By Anthony ffrench-Constant
B
illed quite simply
as ‘The Smallest Supercar’,
abarth’s 695 biposto
certainly lives up to its
gently boastful soubriquet
on two counts: not only is it the fastest
road-going model the company has yet
produced, but it’s also hilariously,
dazzlingly, corruscatingly expensive.
The brief abarth set itself was a
simple one: screw a number plate to the
one-make race-series 695 assetto Corse
track car and provide a burgeoning
customer base which has swollen
company sales by 24% in the last year
with – as Carlo abarth himself put it
– ‘Sunday on the track and Monday in
the office.’
To garner what should, then, be a grin
of positively Joker proportions, abarth
focused on the two key goals of weight
reduction and engine performance.
So, taking the lump hammer and
blowtorch to a run-of-the-mill fiat 500,
out go rear seats, air-conditioning, audio
system, door cards, posh headlamps, fog
lights et al, ruthlessly paring an everyday
1.4-litre variant’s dry weight from a lardy
930kg to a helium-bubble, um, 997kg.
Oh dear… it’s hard to believe a
Poggipolini tubular titanium rollcage
and attendant cargo net outbulks a rear
bench seat, so we must attribute what
appears to be something of a closet binge
diet hiccup to the massed ranks of 695
biposto-specific Sabelt seats, brembo
brakes, 18in OZ alloys with bespoke
215/35 Goodyears, extreme Shox
adjustable shock absorbers, an akrapovic
exhaust system, a wider track and a
1.4-litre turbo powerplant lifted pretty
much piecemeal from a formula 4
single-seater.
abarth has, however, delivered
somewhat more successfully on the
promise of engine performance. The
heavily Garrett’ed 1368cc unit spits out a
nicely spiteful 187bhp at 5500rpm (the4
february 2015 I CARMAGAZINE.Co.uk
31

NEW CAR UNCOVERED!
Jaguar F-Pace
56 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK I FEBRUARY 2015

F-PACE!
AND 6
MORE BIG
SURPRISES
ON JAGUAR’S
FIRST SUV
It will have to be good, not only to take Jag’s sporting cred off
the road and across the fields, but also to overcome a silly name
and trounce Porsche’s Macan. Luckily, the signs are promising
WORDS: James Taylor I PHOTOGRAPHY: Alex Howe
FEBRUARY 2015 I CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK
57

THE CAR ADVENTURE
911 Targa vs Targa Florio
Vic Elford: a proper legend
LEWIS HAMILTON’S alright,
but he’s no Vic Elford. In Quick
Vic’s day drivers would compete
in F1, F2 and sports cars in the
same season, but Elford was
exceptional. In 1968 he won the
Monte Carlo Rally, and a week
later the Daytona 24 Hours. Later
that year he won the Nürburgring
1000km and came fourth in his
fi rst F1 race at Rouen, in the wet.
But was his astonishing erasure
of an 18-minute defi cit to win
the Targa Florio the greatest
achievement of that extraordinary
year ‘Oh, absolutely, no
question, absolutely. Daytona
was a bit of an anti-climax
because nothing went wrong
with my car. We just drove and
drove and drove and we won.
But with the Targa Florio, I really
had to work for it.’ The following
season he tried NASCAR in the
Daytona 500, and later Can-Am
with McLaren. In 1972 President
Pompidou made him a Chevalier
of the National Order of Merit for
stopping mid-race at Le Mans to
rescue the drivers in a fi ery crash.
Much later, as an instructor,
he would discover Juan Pablo
Montoya. He is a central fi gure
in Porsche’s motorsport history:
not only were his victories on the
Monte and at Daytona Porsche’s
fi rst in major rallying and 24-hour
racing, but it was Elford who
persuaded Porsche to go rallying
with the 911. They might still
make them like Vic, but we rarely
get the chance to fi nd out.
When the road
looks like this you’ll
be glad you’re in a
four-wheel-drive
Porsche, and not a
Ferrari 458
balletic roof mechanism, and with a structure that seems
impervious to deflection. So it deserves the long trip back
‘home’. ‘Porsche is trying hard to get its 911 into the public
consciousness and this is a good place to do it, besides finding
out in a unique manner just how strong it is,’ CAR wrote about
the early racing 911s entered in the Targa Florio exactly half a
century ago. It still seems like a good idea.
Taking a 911 with the benefit of 50 years’ development and
driving it at non-racing speeds might seem like a less stern test,
but it doesn’t feel that way from the start. The autopista south
through mainland Italy is sucked into a biblical downpour
which almost blinds us and makes us very glad of the Targa’s
standard all-wheel drive and a roof that fits properly. The ferry
from the toe of Italy lands in Messina, and after the short
crossing you feel like you’ve travelled back to an older, more
impoverished Italy. It’s grittier than the mainland. Packs of
stray dogs roam the docks, there are piles of uncollected rubbish,
and everyone drives a Fiat still, other than the heavy-set men in
tracksuits and Mercedes who cast a heavy, lazy eye over our
German-registered Porsche. Maybe they just like the way it
looks; with the deep blue paintwork contrasting with the
aluminium roll-hoop and the deep brown cabin, it’s the bestlooking
911.
Sicily’s roads are in a bad way, with craters that could
swallow a wheel. The Targa is a very expensive car now: with
options, our 4S would be into six figures in the UK. But it
doesn’t feel like a highly-strung exotic as we negotiate the
unforgiving angles and gradients and not-very-level crossings
on the narrow road that leads up to our hotel. As always, the 911
feels wieldy, manageable, and robust. I wouldn’t want to get a
458 up here.
Nino Vaccarella is unquestionably the most-loved winner of
the Targa. He was born in Collesano, a small town on the
70 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK I FEBRUARY 2015

FEBRUARY 2015 I CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK
71

AYS OF
TH
More than 1100bhp of American muscle.
Two of Europe’s most sophisticated sports cars.
One epic five-day road trip. A lot of petrol money
WORDS: Ben Miller, CJ Hubbard, Chris Chilton & Ben Pulman
PHOTOGRAPHY: Greg Pajo
EUROPE
vs
AMERICA
82 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK I FEBRUARY 2015

COVER STORY
Big-power US road trip
UNDER!
FEBRUARY 2015 I CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK
83

Our
STARRING
BMW M3
AUDI S1 SPORTBACK
VW GOLF GTI
CITROEN C4 PICASSO
Cars
CATERHAM SEVEN 160
PORSCHE 911 CARRERA
VOLVO V60 HYBRID
SKODA OCTAVIA vRS
FORD FIESTA ST
PEUGEOT RCZ R
SEAT LEON CUPRA
MINI COOPER 5DR
HYUNDAI SANTA FE
NISSAN QASHQAI
130
CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK I FEBRUARY 2015

BMW M3 by Ben Miller
Month 1
HELLO
Ups Power, comfort, looks
Downs Wheelspin weather
SHOCK AND AWE was obviously the thinking, a swift and
brutal re-education. Much of my 18 years on the road has
been spent in front-wheel-drive cars with less than 100bhp,
and I’d even managed to convince myself there’s little need for
more. Then four years ago, in a move without a shred of originality, I
bought an E90 3-series, though I did briefl y exhibit a spasm of nonconformity
by going for the thirsty, board-stiff and painfully peaky
320SI while every other right-minded soul on the island plumps for
the 320d. Still, the 40,000 miles I’ve covered in that car represent
the sum total of my rear-drive experience, and its 170bhp and hugely
grippy chassis convinced me that this really was all I needed; all
anyone needed, surely. Cleary I required disabusing of this notion, so
now I fi nd myself in an F80 M3, grappling to make sense of endlessly
adjustable everything, three times the torque and wheelspin that
follows you everywhere like a needy Labrador. Strong medicine, but
it should do the trick.
The car we have on trial is a pretty top-end example of the breed, its
basic price swelled by options to the tune of £12,000, to £67,000.
By some margin the most indulgent are the £6250 ceramic brakes,
which promise fade-free repeated hard stops in return for the market
value of my eight-year-old 320SI. The power in the middle pedal is
astonishing, requiring a complete recalibration of how much effort
even serious slowing requires – thump them with conviction and it
feels like you might do lasting damage to internal organs. Bringing
another £2645 is the seven-speed DCT transmission. You can tailor
it fully to your tastes, of course, but will it prove as engaging or as
satisfying as a manual The rest of the options list comprises such
niceties as sun-protection glass, the M head-up display (with speedlimit
info), BMW’s advanced loudspeaker system (nearly as powerful
as the twin-turbo six), excellent adaptive headlights and the aluminium
blade interior trim, which certainly lifts a cabin fond of black. Time and
miles will tell if going at the options list like a rabid jackal was a wise
move, but already I have my doubts.
The M3 could scarcely have turned up at a worse time, with the
ice warning chiming in every morning without fail, and this is my
excuse for generally setting the car up in a most un-M way most
mornings; comfort and effi ciency all-round, with the transmission in
Drive mode and on the least aggressive shift map. Adjusted thus,
the M3 in a mightily refi ned cruiser, with the ride quality to take the
sting out of Lincolnshire’s worst tarmac, and such a comfortable and
well-appointed interior that it’s a shame the car’s thirst (22mpg thus
far) means visiting petrol stations at least every 250 miles. But driving
an M3 in this way feels like missing the point spectacularly, so here’s
hoping for a very brief, very mild winter.
LOGBOOK
BMW M3
Price £54,775
As tested £66,785
Miles this month
1154
Total miles 6709
Our mpg 22.2
Official mpg 32.1
Costs None
Fuel this month
£280.02
Ben was asked to
stand next to the
driven wheels. This
was his second
attempt
MARK RICCIONI
FEBRUARY 2015 I CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK
131